Locks Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of Jun Kaneko, the artist’s seventh solo exhibition with the gallery. On view from June 3 to July 31, the exhibition will feature significant freestanding ceramic forms and wall-hung pieces with abstract designs and markings.
Originally trained as a painter in Japan and captured by the California Clay Movement of the early 1960s, Kaneko has for decades explored the interpenetration of form and space in his sculptures. Known for his large-scale, monumental dangos (Japanese for “rounded form” or “dumpling”), Kaneko immerses himself in the parallel processes of painting and of applying slips and glazes to his ceramics. Whether motifs of calligraphic lines, cross hatching, dots, drips, spirals, or other gestural markings, Kaneko says that he hears what the form has to say and begins to make the marks.
This notion of connectivity between not only the artist and the artwork but also the viewer and the artwork is central to the practice of Kaneko. He seeks to understand and have a closeness to the materials that the artwork and artist become one and the viewer becomes encapsulated by the abstract creation.
Jun Kaneko (born in 1942 in Nagoya, Japan) has shown extensively in the U.S. for over fifty years and had one-person exhibits in Canada, Finland, Japan, Norway, South Korea. Kaneko’s work is in numerous museum collections throughout the world including Arabia Museum, Helsinki, Finland; Detroit Institute of Arts; Gardiner Museum, Toronto; Los Angeles County Art Museum; Museum of Art and Design, NY; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Phoenix Art Museum and Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition to his sculptures and installations, the artist has been commissioned to design costumes and sets for leading productions by the Washington National Opera, San Francisco Opera and the Philadelphia Opera Company.
